Todays stage is not looking much easier than yesterdays. There is no Cat.2 or any other intermediate here but therefore it`s going up and down for the whole time on 3 laps á 47km.
So finding the favourites is not that easy. Torckler and Nardin must be named on that terrain just like yesterdays surprising stage winner Murray, even though he won`t be able to come to the front that unseen. Day and Meenhorst did okay yesterday and will try to improve here.
First lap is done and surprisingly no one did try to break out yet. Probably without any intermediate on the route it`s not that lucrative.
But at least the weather did change a lot as the rainy clouds are gone and instead the sun is coming out.
Finally a duo did attack on the 2nd lap. Gallego is a decent climber but due to the team`s bad luck yesterday he already lost a lot of time and is not the biggest danger.
Different his companion Adamou.
Again PFG Armavia are sending a good GC rider into the attack. He is a solid stage racer and could be a good bet for the mountain time trial.
Murray seems to realize the danger to lose the yellow jersey after just one day. But he seems to be alone as nobody is helping him. So we have a pretty weird situation here at the moment with the Brit being a bit ahead of the peloton.
But with 57km to go and a gap of 4'35 the sprinter teams and not Murray`s Cadbury squad are finally accelerate.
MTN, Die Berg Komt Er and Ekspla try to reduce the gap.
The bad luck for Iberia isn`t stopping. Gallego punctures in the breakaway and is losing contact obviously.
He is in between the two groups now but is soon to get caught by the peloton.
With 16km to go also Adamou is caught.
The peloton of 73 rider is still packed together with the sprinters coming towards the front.
3km left and MTN is setting the train for Day. But his only leadout is Niyonshuti already and it`s still quite a bit to go.
Niyonshuti
Day
David
Ghafari
Nardin
Torckler
Frend
Ospina
Martinez
Rizza
Shaekhov
Meenhorst
So no Duque, Friedman or the yellow jersey of Murray in the sprint positions.
And here we see a reason for some of those. Murray is hanging at the very end at the last "climb" together with Friedman and several others.
And going over the top they are dropped.
Also mentionable in this group are Anton Martin, who seems to be injured together with his team mate Perez Sanchez. Adamou is also dropped already and losing any GC chances here as also half of the Jaguar team with Tewelde, Hadi, Gebremedhin and Hamza.
But back to the sprint for the stage win and the fight for the overall lead.
The MTN train did a good job and lasted until the Flamme Rouge.
David and Ghafari still hang onto Day`s wheel while Torckler and Nardin start their sprint on the right.
Both immediately create a gao and look much fresher than the others, where Ghafari, David, Day and Frend are all in the win now. Cadbury with another strong team performance even without their actual race leader.
Nardin is too strong for Torckler and is going around the last corner with a nice gap already.
From behind Torckler has a lot of pressure now but still keeps his 2nd position.
Dominant and well deserved win for Nardin. What a season he had recently.
The Brazilian will also take the leader jersey together with the points and youth lead.
Torckler couldn`t hold on to the lead but still finishes 3rd behind his team mate Frend with another surprising strong Cadbury performance.
Martinez in 4th continues to sprint strong so far even though his concentration surely is on the harder stages.
Day (7.), Rizza (11.) or Meenhorst (20.) couldn`t had a big impact today as the hills were definitely too hard.
A bit more than 2min behind the dropped riders around Murray finish.
A group around todays breakaway and Gate even lose more than 8min.
